Revenge is a Five Step Process
by CarrionEater
Summary: Decepticons don't grieve, but death is always hard to accept.
1. Denial

1. Denial

Carrion will never completely recover the story of what happened. He was involved so marginally.

He remembers the Air Commander going down. That will never leave him. It shouldn't have happened, which is why (he thinks) he can't forget it.

Laying in the medical bay, he sees Starscream's body plummeting from the prow of the _Nemesis_. That's what he remembers the best; seeing that familiar figure tumbling through the air toward the ground. If he cares too, his memory will put him back in the moment. He doesn't enjoy it, but it occupies time while his pain sensors are off and Knock Out is doing whatever it is he thinks he can do to repair him.

Starscream tips off the edge of the Decepticon ship, and Carrion can do nothing but watch. He shouldn't even be doing that. He's supposed to be pretending to have nothing to do with Starscream now, so no one can connect him to the plot should it fail. He's supposed to be being a good soldier and fighting the enemy.

Starscream's body falls a few thousand feet, and judging by the loose, uncoordinated way it drops, a _body_ is all it is. Dust plumes around it as it crashes, and someone shrieks in negation or rage, and it's about then that Carrion feels the hammer-like fist of another bot connect with his head.

He's always been generally useless in a fight because at the first sign of injury he'll take off. If the enemy is larger and escape is an option, he'll almost always run. He's a better sniper than brawler. When that fist connects with his head, hitting hard from one side, he feels delicate gears stripping and wires snapping, can actually _hear_ his optic shatter, and it hurts. But in all this confusion and pain, he reflexively turns, arm raised, and with all the force he can muster, sinks his claws into the face of the Autobot that hit him.

There should have been satisfaction in the way the larger mech screamed, in the way his claws sank into the most fragile portion of his enemy, but there is only a burning desire to get away, to get to where that body had fallen, to make sure they can escape. He transforms in midair, knowing his alt mode to be capable of getting him to where he needs to be much faster than his legs, but he's hardly halfway to the crash site when someone's laser canon catches one of his wings.

Not having gained much altitude, he skids along the ground, scraping and tearing his armor on the rough terrain. Grounded now, wing hot and smoldering and with pieces breaking off, he has no choice but to resume his normal form, running.

It's harder to steer his way through the battlefield with only one optic. He finally makes it into the shadow of the _Nemesis _when there is a bright flash behind him, searing pain, and very suddenly, the ground in his face. He tries to get up and fails. Every bit of him hurts now; it feels like his armor is stripped back to the core metals, leaving him vulnerable and agonized. Something strikes his back and is knocked loudly away, but he hardly notices. For a time, blackness consumes him.

The next thing he knows, someone has picked him up. There is a good deal of red and yellow and steel-blue surrounding him, and from out of his very blurry, very poor line of sight, a familiar voice says to 'get the sparkling to the medical bay'. That voice should be a too-smooth, cozening purr but now it's an angry growl.

Really, there isn't much he remembers after that. Certainly nothing that's important. He may have struggled a bit when he realized that he was being put in one of the medical bay's berths, hooked up to life support. Of course, even in his best condition, there wasn't much he could do against Breakdown. For a while, he assumed, he was put into power-down mode.

He was brought back online to the sound of clicking claws, something tapping against his chest plate. Knock Out hovered over him, moving his claws from Carrion's chest to his face, twisting it from side to side without a word before releasing him with a little mumble that could have been disappointment or dismissal.

"A marvelous job you've done of getting yourself wrecked." The automobile drawled, entering some information into the computer. "I always knew you had scrap for a processor, but I wasn't aware of this desire to go for a matching build." Carrion replied to the poor-excuse-for-a joke with a low growl, trying to push himself up off the berth; it surprised him when the medic turned back toward him and with surprising delicacy pushed him back down. "Ah-ah-ahh, Carrion. You're in no condition."

Because he was tired and drained and had just woken from having his aft kicked, he complied and lay still. Despite there being no pain (he assumed Knock Out had deigned remember to initiate the block), his body felt tense and stiff. He tried to calculate the damage he'd taken, and found he could not. The battle had been too much of a blur.

All that stood out was the memory of Starscream, tumbling through the air. His working optic widened and he tried to sit up again, this time with moderately more success. Knock Out had to shove him to get him to lay back down.

"You," The medic hissed, his normally silken voice drawn tight, "are going to stay down like a good sparkling, or I will personally put your pain sensors back online, before removing every inch of lacquer off your armor by hand. Understand?"

Glaring at the older mech, Carrion resisted for a moment, pushing against the claws that held him down. Because his mind was muddy with exhaustion and worry, not because he was concerned about the older mech's stupid threats, he relaxed a bit, and Knock Out took a step backward, sneering down at him until he asked, "Where is Starscream?"

His own voice surprised him; the syllables were muddied and undefined, each movement of his mouth and jaw accompanied by the clicking and squealing of damaged gears.

The other looked equally taken aback, the characteristic look of arch superiority slipping off his face. "He's… ah… well you were there, weren't you? Before you got yourself half-scrapped anyway."

"I saw him fall." The young jet said, working the words out with the slow effort of one who's jaw does not quite wish to comply with the motions. He twisted in his position to try looking around the room. It did no good; with a combination of the lighting and his location, he couldn't see much around them at all. "Why isn't he the one you're repairing? Shouldn't you be making snide comments at him instead?"

"Ahh," Knock Out sighed, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "You should know that I take no pleasure in telling you this, but… Starscream could not survive that fall. No one could have."

Carrion stared at the medic, finding the news impossible to believe. The only thing his processor could furnish as an excuse was that Knock Out had a twisted sense of humor, and did enjoy getting a rise out of him.

It was unfeasible, the idea that he would survive while Starscream... It _couldn't_ happen. With all that he owed the Air Commander, the idea that he could just be gone was _wrong_. It was unfair. Life couldn't be jilted that way, wouldn't _work_ that way. It was completely illogical that a war-hardened soldier could fall when a _scrapling_ like himself still lived.

Scowling myopically at the red mech, he shook his head in negation. "You're not funny, scrap-face."

He heard the rapid click of keys stutter and still for a second. "Nor am I trying to be." Knock Out muttered, moving back to Carrion's side. "I have a lot of work to do on you that I think would go ever so much faster if you shut up," He said before the young seeker would have a chance to continue arguing. "It is obvious that your processing capabilities, such as they ever were, have not suffered too much damage. I'll return you to power down and get back to work."

Power down sounded good; not having to think or remember or face anything. Settling back against the berth, ignoring the bizarre sensation of the edges of deadened metal bending in toward his chassis. He took one last long look at the lights of the medical bay ceiling, and then was gone.

In the days that followed, as more of his repairs were completed, Carrion managed to remain silent long enough that Knock Out allowed him to stay on full power, making some simple repairs of his own. It gave him something to do to fill the empty spaces of time, rather than dwell on the battle he'd only just made it out of.


	2. Anger

2. Anger

It should have hard to deny the absence of the larger jet, but Carrion could come up with thousands of reasons, little excuses that proved Starscream could still be alive and not be in the medical wing. One in particular rang true, and was much easier to swallow than the 'truth' Knock Out offered: that Starscream, being completely healthy, had no business in sick bay.

Mindset thus, he focused on the task of getting himself into condition to leave the medical wing. For quite a while, the snide medic wouldn't give him access to the equipment he needed for some of the more delicate repairs, including a mirror to work on his face. Hooked up to the various wires and trappings of the berth, he could hardly get to his feet, much less go tearing around for the tools he didn't have.

The first time he pulled himself free of the life support cables – which connected him to the pain-blocking signal – the agony that flashed through him was so intense, he was barely capable of reconnecting himself. Despite the fact that the medic truly had been working on him, so much of his inner workings were damaged that the pain was almost a literal override, sending his processor into a screaming whirlwind of burning circuits and shrieking servos.

It was impossible to get up without disconnecting himself, so for that day he made due making minor repairs on the armor around his joints. There was little enough point working anywhere else, as Knock Out would have to open much of his armor to repair the more delicate mechanisms below.

His second attempt, occurring several days later, went much better. Knock Out, with Breakdown's assistance, had done a massive overhaul on his wings and back, where he had taken a lot of damage from several different blasters. Sometime after they had both departed (Carrion tried very hard not to think about why or where to or what for), he tentatively disengaged the life support cable from his chest, tensing, waiting for the attack of agony.

There was pain, yes, but somehow nowhere near what he might have expected. Pretty much all of him was sore and stiff, but true pain lurked only in certain regions. He pushed past it, sliding from the berth and managing to hold his weight, so long as he had something to grip.

A self-absorbed narcissist like Knock Out was bound to keep something around to catch his reflection in, and it wasn't too long before Carrion found a well-polished piece of metal that would suit his needs perfectly.

Looking into it, he found himself turning his head this way and that, simultaneously numb to the shock of what he was seeing and incredibly disheartened. Where he had imagined some cracking and breaking, ugly but repairable, there was a mangled, twisted wreck. The upward swing of his enemy's fist showed clearly in the way the metal of his face was warped. The hinge of his jaw was actually visible, scratched where some other piece had dug in, though it must have been removed. Dazedly, he brought a claw up, brushing lightly over the sensitive cavity that claimed half his face. The whole optic had already been removed, leaving nothing but a derelict pit. He could only hope he'd left a mark half as bad on the other mech.

"It was a total loss," A voice purred from by the door, almost making him jump. As he often did, Knock Out had a way of making Carrion feel guilty. He watched in the reflection as the automobile sauntered up behind him. "It will be a while before I can finish such… intensive repairs."

He opened his mouth to speak and almost doubled over from the pain such a simple action caused. Bare wires and broken gears crunched, the whole left side of his face a sea of hurt. Clenching his claws, which added somewhat to the pain, he stumbled back to the berth struggling to lay back down. His trembling couldn't be helped, but that made him no less annoyed when the medic smoothly stepped to his side, reconnecting the cables that hooked him up to the medical equipment, saving the life-support for last.

After a moment to process the lack of pain, he cut a glare at the older mech. It surprised him somewhat that Knock Out wasn't laughing at him, or at least giving him one of his patronizing shushes that so perfectly characterized his sense of bedside manner.

"Why haven't you replaced my optic?" He demanded in his new, slurring tone. Somehow it managed to be appropriately accusatory.

Knock Out flicked a claw dismissively, as if to toss the question away. "I will soon. I've had some trouble finding one to fit your specs, is all."

"There are literally," Carrion growled, waving toward the repair trays, "dozens of optics in storage. I know. I've gone through them."

With a little sigh, the older mech merely rolled his eyes, speaking as if to a slow student. "There are none that will match your current one. Unless you'd like me to waste time blinding you, I cannot repair your single optic without mismatching your already unattractive face."

Though in the past anger had generally been a slow thing to build in him, Carrion felt his temper flare, and looking up at the smug grin on the other's face did not help him reign it in. "I don't give a scrap if it _matches_, Knock Out," He snapped. "They're _optics_, not rims on your slagging tires."

Once again the automobile's optics narrowed, claws clutching at the life support cable running into Carrion's chest, providing the jet with relief from his pain and stability to maintain clear thought. "You know, Carrion, this attitude may have been cute when you first let someone try to knock you offline and we could pretend that your processor was addled. But it's been days, and I must say, I'm getting rather sick of listening to you _whine_. It is _beyond_ time for you to get over yourself and stop behaving like a sparkling who's been knocked down and had his toys stolen."

"The only thing I'm behaving like," Carrion growled, forcing ire into his voice to make up for the squealing and screeching of the bared joints and wires, "is a patient who is being poorly taken care of. I, I… Starscream will have work for me to do and I'm wasting my slagging time here."

In a swift, pitiless motion, Knock Out's claws latched onto his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "You know, I've tried being nice to you, Carrion. I'm getting very bored of it. Starscream is _dead_, and you're not. Get over it and _grow up_."

For a moment, all Carrion could do was stare at the automobile. Every part of him fought to deny what he was being told; it simply was impossible to accept his own life when Starscream was gone. It wasn't _right_, it wasn't _fair_, it _couldn't_ happen… but Starscream himself had told him that life was many things, but rarely if ever was it fair. Starscream had always tried to shove such awareness at him, and he'd mostly tried to ignore it, preferring to keep his focus on just being around the older jet. Even when the Air Commander had hardly acknowledged his existence, he had been happy just to catch a glare from him. It was for Starscream that he'd ever even bothered coming to Earth, before he'd ever seen the infamous Seeker.

Though he pulled back to stand over his patient, Knock Out seemed to take his silence as encouragement to continue. He didn't seem to be enjoying himself, for once, with his expression caught between exasperated and cruel. "You can't pretend you don't know it. Everyone knows why you got your aft shot to hell and back. If they weren't whispering about you and your precious Commander before, they certainly are now. Rather sad, actually, since I would have _loved_ to see his reaction to your flagrant stupidity, but he's _dead_. You're _alive_. Get over it."

The words made him feel like someone were crushing his spark chamber, making his engine run faster and his mind feel numb and slow. "If someone killed Breakdown, would you just _get over it_?" Carrion asked, his voice snappish, sounding without processing what he was about to say. He almost regretted it for the way it made Knock Out's optics narrow, whole face tightening in reflexive rage as his claws came to once again clutch at the life support cable, tugging at it.

"You'd do well to remember which of us is wounded here, Carrion," the automobile ground out, his voice losing all traces of its normal smoothness as it sank toward outrage. "No one, and I mean _no one_ will be taking Breakdown offline any time soon. He's entirely capable of picking his fights and winning them. And even if someone did manage to put him down, they would find themselves in a very similar position not long after at my hands. I'm funny that way. So it's not a good idea to posit hypotheticals on the subject." As he spoke, his claws clenched and pulled at the cable, alternating it's connection with Carrion's body, sending quick flashes of pain through him before finally disconnecting it entirely. "Say anything stupid like that again, and I'll take you apart. Do I make myself clear?"

In a rage, Knock Out could actually be quite terrifying, though nowhere near so much as Megatron or even Starscream had ever been. It was enough to signify that the conversation really ought to have ended there. Still, the small seeker couldn't help running his mouth, forcing a grimace of nasty pleasure despite his discomfort.

"S-so that's a _no_, then, huh?"

The claw not gripping the life support cable seized him by the face. Without the pain blocking signal, the contact was agonizing; bare wires and circuits crushed down against core metal. His engine revved as he choked back a sound of distress, trying to sink back into the berth without causing more friction against the wound. Knock Out only clenched a little harder for a moment, before releasing him and thrusting the life support cable back in place. "Eventually, yes, I _would_ get over him," the medic hissed. "But I have an excuse to be attached to Breakdown, I have a reason to feel myself… _indebted_ to him. What do you owe Starscream but an embarrassingly low sense of self preservation and the ability to act like a sparkling well past a mature age?"

A hypothetical question, Carrion would realize later, but in the moment it felt like another blithe, intentional attempt to get a rise out of him. The words cheapened the illogical emotions that got tangled in his spark and processor when Carrion thought about the older jet. They implied that Starscream had been some kind of one-sided infatuation. Starscream, who had stuck his neck out for him more times than he could process, who let him run away like a spoiled scrapling and then came after him and brought him home, who never let him get away with being stupid or clumsy and always forced him to strive for cunning, clever, brutal perfection.

"I owe him my life," Carrion muttered, his single optic narrowed in a fresh glare. "And since that's not worth a whole slagging lot, I owe him a lot more. You can belittle what I meant to Commander Starscream all you like, since you'd probably be right in saying it wasn't all that much, but you can quit pretending that you're the only one with… an attachment to another mech."

Knock Out met his glare with a surprisingly easy look, much of the malice gone out of his expression. He looked much less ready to peel Carrion into scrap, if a little disturbed by the younger mech's frankness. Finally he exhaled a little sigh, seeming to take a moment to recompose himself into his normal, infuriatingly cool self. "You want me to replace your optic, regardless of how well it matches the original?"

This was how it always was, Carrion knew, with arguments between Decepticons that didn't end in a fight or murder. They simply tried to pretend that the quarrel hadn't happened. It had always been easy before, but Carrion had never been in an argument about something that hurt so personally. That made it a little harder to swallow his bitterness and respond. "Yeah, well, preferably without dramatically unbalancing my head. Just get the size right, I don't give a scrap after that."

"Of course you don't." Knock Out intoned, smirking faintly. "All right, sit tight. I'm sure I can find _something_ for you that won't make you look too much more unsightly." The medic sauntered off to retrieve the tools necessary for the job, laughing as his own wit. Watching him, Carrion tried to push past the heavy sinking feeling in his spark, to do as advised and move on. And yet, even as Knock Out set about finally replacing his optic, he remained uncharacteristically quiet, a bitter emotion encasing him and forcing his silence.

It would be so easy to stay angry at Knock Out, who was infuriating on principle and hovering right there where anger could be directed at him. But directing his anger at the automobile had done nothing but make him feel worse and getting into a fight had made him hurt and uneasy. The anger was for someone else, but it made no sense to direct it anywhere but inward. Being angry at the dead was illogical and impractical, even if they had hurt him in passing. Starscream had no more planned to die than Carrion had planned on getting half his face crushed.

But it was still there, that anger, and no matter how he wanted to aim it at himself or process it away, it lurked and bided, twisting inside him as Knock Out worked on his face. Starscream had never promised Carrion anything, had never been sentimental about the ways that he was around for the younger jet, but he had always been there and had always come when Carrion needed him, and that implied some sort of assurance. It was stupid and selfish and he knew it, but he couldn't help the fury that welled up in him at the way the Air Commander had suddenly, violently disappeared from his life.

"Slag him for dying," he growled softly as Knock Out put a final twist against the new optic, connecting it securely to Carrion's processor and finishing its installation.

Carrion was vaguely amused to see the other mech hesitate before letting his iciest smile slip onto his face, voice its usual silken purr in his response.

"That's the spirit."


	3. Bargaining

3. Bargaining

Anger was a natural standby emotion for many Decepticons. It was iconic of their ilk to resort quickly to rage in lieu of more delicate emotions. In that regard, Carrion had always been strange; his penchant for emotional expression had been one of the few traits that allowed him to feel somewhat normal around the Autobots.

But he had never been one of them, had never really belonged even for all the moments that he had felt at ease and accepted. It had been lie, for one thing; the Autobots may have kept their mouths shut around him, but they had never wanted or accepted him in their ranks. And even if they had, in his spark he would always sympathize with the Decepticon ways.

With his repairs complete, Carrion tried to throw himself back into action. His abilities as a seeker were mediocre at best, but after an extensive internal debate, he knew continuing on as he had while Starscream still guided him was the best possible course of action. He had come to Earth to fly and fight as a seeker in the Decepticon army, and that was what he would do.

Except, he knew that it would be impossible for him to function properly at first. Extended conversation with anyone made him feel irritated and barely contained, as if at the slightest provocation he would combust. Taking orders after so long under what passed for 'care' from Knock Out would probably fry his processor permanently. Every minor conversation threatened to become a confrontation, even though it was clear to him that Knock Out wasn't the one provoking him. He would start snarling at the medic, while at the same time trying to force himself to shut up. It was not conducive to the whole 'getting over this' concept.

The greatest thing about being a Decepticon was that no one really cared what you did, so long as any higher up didn't bother them about where you were. Even then, as long as you could convince people that what you'd been off doing was in some way useful to the army, you could pretty much count on continued indifference.

Standing at the edge of a small hangar gateway, Carrion absently ran a claw over the left side of his face. Where the metal had before been smooth and sleek, it was now marred around his optic in a series of craggy scars. Knock Out claimed to have done his best, but it was nice to have a legitimate reason to be angry with someone other than himself. The new optic was also both the wrong color and the wrong shape, giving his face a somewhat unbalanced appearance. Overall his new face looked older and feeling it almost made him glad Starscream would never see it.

What a terrible thought.

Pitching forward through the hangar gates, he allowed himself to drop several few hundred feet before giving in to the instinct to shift over to his alt mode and regain some altitude. The rush of fuel and acceleration of his engine as he plummeted was as good a distraction as anything, and much more conducive to staying alive than picking a fight with anyone on the _Nemesis _.

In jet-mode, he skimmed low over a largely flat terrain for a while, unconsciously following the _Nemesis 's_ back trail. It wasn't until he saw the scattered wreckage of the battlefield that he realized where he'd flown. The recognition jarred him, making him pull up and then do a lazy outside loop to maintain flight over the area.

Remnants of Vehicon drones littered the dusty ground, marking the Decepticon fatalities. For the Autobots, Carrion saw no sign of losses. They were already the weaker side, fewer in number, he knew, but he wished with sudden, bitter ferocity that they'd lost soldiers too. Before, his perception of death in war had been purely academic: people died in battle, of course, but it had never been personal or important, so long as he flew off safely.

A glint of something in the dust, away from the main site of the battle, caught his eye as he turned to flee the scene. Impulsively, he darted back toward the earth, changing into his normal form in midair and plucking the object from the ground before landing in a crouch. The action was perhaps lacking the grace that a more accomplished seeker might have used, and maybe he stumbled a little in landing, but he had never claimed to be the best.

The item in his hand was a thin shard of red metal, still glossy and smooth under the grime, shattered at the base where it had once connected to other metal. He held it carefully in his palm, examining the scrap in much closer detail than it rightly deserved. Holding it made him feel off balance and angry, as if someone had shoved him without warning.

It was possible that he was wrong in his assumption of what he held. A lot of mechs incorporated red in their armor and a shard like this could have come from any of them.

Carrion was practiced in the art of self-delusion. It helped him to get through the days he spent among the Autobots, for one thing. But in this it was too hard to play pretend, the hurts all too fresh and screaming to be aired. The shard had come from Starscream's helm, broken off when the older jet's body had slammed into the earth. Broken off when all chance of him having survived his planned attack against Megatron was lost. When he had abandoned Carrion to a very awkward and lonely existence.

How infuriating to acknowledge that, to have that _sentimentality_ finally show clear in his processor. Whatever else he'd meant to do in coming to join the Decepticon army, winding up… _bereft_ from the loss of his Commander had certainly never been part of the plan. Starscream was supposed to be so clever and so tactical, so brutally highhanded and aloof among his troops. He should never have even given someone like Carrion – wings or no, what had he been, really, but a _medic_, a _sparkling_ – the time of day, much less get him so attached that he was all but _destroyed_ at his death.

All this anger, all this pain, it was _Starscream's_ fault that he was feeling it. Starscream should have been his _Commander_, should have been a force from a distance and never have allowed _anyone_, much less Carrion, to be close enough to be affected by his death.

It was obvious to anyone with a functioning processor that the Air Commander spent his days in a suicidal fit, constantly toying with Megatron's wrath and barely escaping death by virtue of lies or wit. Starscream, who Carrion had trusted to be the _smart one_, to have a _plan_, should have known better than to drag a starry-eyed sparkling into his plans. Should have known better than to protect him and cover for him and defend him. By all rights, Starscream should have let Carrion get fragged at his earliest convenience, because it would have been easier for both of them. And if he wasn't going to do that, then he _never_ should have let Carrion know that he'd been watching out for him, never should have let Carrion know what a massive debt he owed the Air Commander.

To owe something that enormous and have had it so completely broken down how long lasting the debt had been was bad enough. To know that, no matter what he did now, he would never be able to pay that debt off, was worse. It was painful, and infuriating.

Only when he felt the metal crumple under his claws did he realize his fist had reflexively clenched. In an instant, the rage bled out of him, replaced with a sudden, embarrassing sense of concern. Logically, he knew it didn't matter if he ruined this little scrap; it was a broken thing already and it wasn't as if anyone could be hurt by its destruction.

Except, and he knew he shouldn't be, he _was_ hurt to see the broken shard of helmet twisted and scratched from his claws. It was like… like kicking a corpse, another little slight against the mech the scrap belonged to. He heard an odd whirr as his engine stuttered, a tightening in his chassis as he quickly tried to smooth the metal back to its original shape. The action was ridiculous, but more so was the sense of guilty panic that came over him as his shaking claws pressed the fragment back toward it's intended shape.

Looking at it now, after he could no longer work any more of the newly added kinks from the metal, it was a sad, distressing little memento. More than ever it looked like a weather-beaten scrap, utterly meaningless to anyone who didn't know where it had come from. Staring at it made Carrion feel alone and useless, and he didn't like it.

All of it was wrong, and there was nothing to be done about it. It chaffed that he was incapable of any action that might conceivably make this hurt go away; that he could do nothing right by his Commander's memory. Whatever else he had been, loyalties and matters of treason aside, Starscream had always done what he thought was best for the Decepticons. Under his leadership they could have done so much more than they ever managed under the rule of the obsessive, unstable Lord Megatron. That much Starscream hadn't even needed to drill into Carrion; he had eyes enough to see it himself.

So it galled him that Starscream's body would rust out here in some forsaken field of hard-packed sand and dust, pieces broken off and lost; a wreck with no one to remember his name. It was wrong.

Autobots had a bend for memorializing fallen comrades as a group. Decepticons, by and large far less of a social group, had no such practices. Unless Megatron had been feeling particularly vindictive that day, allowing Starscream's body to tumble gracelessly into the battlefield would have been slight enough against his treacherous second in command. Somewhere out here, among the rock and the fallen drones, was the body of the older seeker.

Carefully this time, he closed his claws around the scrap of the Air Commander's helmet and stalked across the terrain, mismatched eyes narrowed in concentration as he looked for any sign of the rest of Starscream's corpse.

Finding it was no easy feat. He hadn't exactly had time to imprint any landmarks when he'd seen the other jet fall, but with a few quick calculations he was able to triangulate a narrow area to search based on the _Nemesis 's _location and flight path. Still, as heavy as the body was and with the force it had fallen, it had kicked up a great deal of dirt and dust, all of which would eventually have settled back down over the remains, camouflaging them.

When finally he managed to locate the body, he could at first only stand there, shaken. Acknowledging that Starscream was dead was mentally difficult enough, but now, confronted with the corpse… he felt carved open and raw and somehow chastened.

He had crouched down at the glimmer of dull metal catching sunlight, tentatively brushing loose debris away to reveal the upturned hand of his fallen Commander. After that, finding the rest of the corpse was elementary. Though connected in some places by only a few wires and strangled twists of metal, the body was whole, hidden mostly by a shower of loose rock.

The first time he'd seen Starscream in person, the other seeker had been in an induced power down state, laying wounded and unconscious on the medical bay's primary berth. For all intents and purposes, power down should perfectly resemble death; optics darkened, body limp, processor unresponsive to physical stimuli.

In practice, the two weren't remotely similar.

Starscream had always had, even in that first meeting, a sense of vitality and indomitability that translated even when he was powered down. This… _thing_ was hollow, optics not only dark but completely empty. They would never flicker back to their piercing brightness, never narrow in seething rage or widen in surprised approval. Starscream was offline, his broken, barely held together body just another discarded object in the desert.

There was dust and grim building up in the grooves that ran below the Commander's optics, and Carrion used that as an excuse to crouch down, reach out, and ghost a claw down his face, gently wiping the filth away. His claw came back shaking, but he reached out a second time and cleaned the second groove. The contact was soft and purposeful and far too personal; something Starscream would never had tolerated. Knowing that and staring at the hollow, dark optics was painful, creating a sharp twisting in his spark that pulled a little distressed sound from him.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, claws hovering just over the still face. He didn't know what he was apologizing for or too, but neither query seemed overly important. "I'm sorry, you selfish, arrogant slagging bastard. I never thought… this could even happen. I'm sorry if I fragged up again. I, I tried, I really tried."

Apologies, meaningless and little more than babble, poured from him, and it stung that Starscream would never again tell him to shut up, never shove him aside and ignore his apologies, never berate him for being a fool, a senseless imbecile, an incompetent scrapling. Starscream was dead, with nothing left but this broken, twisted corpse to commemorate his existence.

The words eventually tapered off, pain finally silencing him, and he remained kneeling in the dust with his head bowed. After a long moment of staring at the energon-enriched ground, he fetched a sigh and tried to steady the wounded, uneven revving of his engine. Looking again at the older jet's body, he forced himself to take in the entirety of the damage, ignoring the gruesome details and focusing on the gory whole.

Cause of death was easy to determine; the center of Starscream's chest was reduced to a raged hole, spark chamber crushed. It gave Carrion a bit of relief to understand that his Commander had clearly been dead long before his body crashed into the desert. But the comfort was bitter; as brutal and undoubtedly quick as the crushing must have been, the moments before life finally faded from him would have been agonizing.

It was hard to take in such of an overview without noticing the little damages as well. Just a glance revealed so many dings and dents, scratches and tears in the armor. In places, even the infrastructure and underlying supports were damaged. The helmet was cracked and broken, utterly destroyed in the back, where it had likely hit the ground. Carrion saw with disgust that in some places, with pieces of the helm completely broke away, one could see through to the bare processor.

There was too little moisture in the desert for the bared metals to begin iodizing with rust, but where the paint and finish was scraped away, Carrion could already see other signs of corrosion. He hated the idea of leaving his Commander out here, to be reburied in the dirt and stone, forgotten and left to the elements. Just the suggestion made him feel guilty and hurt again. Starscream deserved better, whether anyone else thought so or not.

Regaining his feet, the young jet looked around. Not far to the east, there was a series of high rock walls, twisting in and out of each other. Sensors showed that it was pitted with shallow caves and outcroppings, many large enough for a pair of mechs to share space in.

Looking down at Starscream again, he felt an odd twisting sensation at the core of himself. Really, he should have flown off. To be perfectly honest, he shouldn't have even bothered coming here, or looking for his Commander's body… he should have stayed away and let it be. Let himself seethe for a while, if that was what it took; seething was a normal Decepticon attitude anyway.

Instead, he was here, looking at the dead thing that sort of resembled the only other creature he'd ever really bothered to care about. And looking hurt. He was tired of aching.

It needed to stop.

He lifted his hand, examining the red shard that had broken from the older jet's helmet once again. "If I do this," he said, speaking to the scrap because, though it made just as little sense, it hurt less than addressing the shell crumpled on the ground. "If I do this, then I'll stop hurting."

The words came out sounding more like a petulant demand than a suggestion, but the idea made a great deal of sense to himself. Here was the only chance of revenge he could get against the force that had taken Starscream out of his life. By doing what he could to secure some level of decency for his Commander's remains, he could consider the other's life at least acknowledged and appreciated, which was far more than what Megatron would want.

A stunted, stupid, spineless revenge, but Starscream probably would have said it suited perfectly the stunted, stupid, spineless mech that thought it up. Fitting.

Moving the body as it currently was would be impossible. Carrion had enough medical knowledge to see that trying to drag the body with so much unrepaired damage would only cause more breakage. He would not be the cause of any further damage.

Quite a lot of the finer damage he simply could do nothing about, lacking either the specific tools or the finer knowledge to try. But the major structural things, the things that on a living mech would have been most important, he was fully capable of quickly repairing. And so, though it felt as if his own spark were being ripped out every time he touched that unresponsive body, he did.

Despite having only his field kit and despite the pain it caused himself to work, he was careful where he could have been rough, delicate where he might have been abrupt. He treated Starscream's body exactly as he would have if the larger jet could complain about his work, muttering softly to himself the same sort of half-minded reminders of care that he always gave when repairing his injured companion.

Finally, the sun high in the azure sky, he deemed the corpse well enough repaired to be moved. Somehow, the sound of twisting, scraping metal was enough to take the pain in his spark to another level, which he rather hadn't thought possible. Still, he hooked one arm round his shoulders and hoisted the body off the ground.

He was too short to truly manage carrying Starscream anywhere, and the larger jet was much too heavy. What he managed was more of a graceless dragging, yet one more thing that would have shamed him if he'd given it the time too. Instead, probably wisely, he focused on the labor ahead of him.

It took him some time to make it to the rocky cliff-face that he'd chosen, and longer still to find a suitable space for his purpose. Eventually, he managed. There was something awkward and detestable about the compulsion that overcame him to arrange Starscream into a position other than a sprawl on the cave floor, but he managed to do that as well. It seemed wrong to leave him lying there, so he positioned the body to sit, back against the far wall.

The cave was shallow, but deep enough that the worst of the wind was kept out. Baring a flood – which, given the arid climate, seemed laughable – no moisture would work its way in either.

For a moment, Carrion remained standing in the cave, the red scrap resting in the palm of one hand. He knew that realistically it would do nothing for him to keep it, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to simply weld the piece back where it belonged. Making his decision with a quick gesture, he tucked the shard into a convenient space in his own armor, gave one last look at his Commander's remains, and left the cave.

He expected to feel the lifting of some weight from him with this task successfully accomplished. To feel that he was truly beyond this pain, done with the tragedy, and (as Knock Out insisted he should be), Over It.

The fact that he didn't feel anything was somewhat disappointing.


	4. Depression

4. Depression

Returning to his duties, Carrion found himself at least completely capable of taking orders again. He was the essence of obedience and silent compliance, simply doing what he was ordered in the simplest, fastest manner possible. He refrained from banter with others, preferring silence and his own company in a way that he never had before.

Sometimes it had baffled and infuriated him, the way Starscream often preferred solitude and quiet brooding to more lively activities. He had often felt compelled to disrupt the Commander's private ruminations with his own noise, trying to draw the older mech out into play or bickering or _anything_ that didn't seem so friendless and self-contained.

Because, he had thought, who would honestly want to live like that?

Now, without the delights of pestering his superior into a snark, Carrion discovered that he harbored the capacity for a good deal of silent brooding himself.

Day after day, he followed routine, completing tasks that seemed increasingly meaningless and fighting battles that were progressively pointless. He managed to become a better seeker, at least marginally, for in his unwillingness to engage in anything like sociable conduct he could translate his bitterness and hurt into fuel for battle, making him more calculating, more reckless, more violent in the moment. He was quite efficient.

Yet despite the success he brought, he wasn't satisfied. He was still suspect in the eyes of many on the _Nemesis _, for Knock Out had of course been correct. Conclusions had been drawn about his reactions to Starscream's fall.

He was no Starscream; despite the urge to, he never punished those who muttered stupid things about him, his loyalties, or his _entanglements_. It would have been easy to manage on a hectic battlefield, but he lacked the drive and the spite to do more than what he'd been ordered. He attracted no extra attention and withdrew from any group at the soonest possible moment.

On his own, he frequently gave in to the urge to hold the scrap he'd stolen from Starscream's broken remains. Holding it, looking at it, stoked his pain and soothed him all at once. He didn't care to examine the way he still hurt, simply feeling a dull sense of exhaustion with each fresh stab at his spark. He was tired, and that was easier to understand than the lingering ache and anger associated with the little scrap he obsessed over.

He wanted so much to be done with this pain, with this soft, weak sadness, but at the same time he relished it. This was what he had left of Starscream, and if that was all he was allowed, then he would take it.

Better agony than allowing himself to acknowledge the loneliness and the centuries stretched out before him to suffer it through.


	5. Acceptance

5. Acceptance

For a long time, Carrion focused on getting though a day's assignment to make it back to his quarters and spend time on his own, brooding and embittering himself. Holding the shard of his Commander's helm was a focus for the hurt and unhappiness that drove him. But a mind, no matter how clever, can only process and reprocess the same source of pain for so long, before the wound closes and the hurt dulls.

Still, he spent as much time as he could on his own, gently clutching or tracing his claws over the scrap as his mind wandered. Sometimes, more often in the beginning, he would think of Starscream, of how Starscream would have reacted to his behavior that day. Would he approve? What mistakes had he made, how could he perfect himself? He would revisit his accomplishment from every angle and with cold precision point out his own mistakes.

Time passed, and the broken scrap of metal no longer was associated with that sharp, spark-rending pain. He would think of times he'd spent with Starscream, moments that he hadn't realized he'd stored in his memory. Sometimes, even while he was running his claws absently over the metal piece, he wouldn't even think of Starscream at all.

And then, one day, Carrion realized that he hadn't really thought about Starscream for some time. The realization was something of a blow; for a moment he felt a stab of the bitter hurt that had plagued him for so long. It felt like a piece of himself had twisted away and broken off, leaving him free to finally break down what he was feeling and logically address it.

It comforted him to know that all those feelings that he'd felt when around Starscream were just base reactions in his processor, just tiny collisions in an organized collection of synapse and electrical impulses.

To know that when he looked at the older jet, his engine only revved up a cycle because of a natural reaction to Starscream's specific facial arrangement, the symmetry of his features, and undetectable impulses that had only to do with a certain complimentary nature between the two of them.

And thankfully, Carrion also knew that all mechs were just masses of atoms, joined in a specific, yet slightly variable pattern; each no more important in the overall equation of the universe than the smallest scrap, the most insignificant fleck of rust.

But when he thought about the inevitability of death, knowing that in the blink of an eye all he'd known had disappeared, that comfort was somewhat diminished. He wanted to hold on to Starscream and never let go, to indulge in the comfort of something familiar, however base the impulses behind that urge were.

It was safe to admit what everyone else seemed to already know. He had been completely, foolishly, unwaveringly in love with his Commander. And now, his Commander was dead.

He had put every last micron of himself into cultivating his relationship with Starscream; to get into the older seeker's good graces and to make himself useful and helpful and unforgettable, irreplaceable, necessary. Now, Starscream was gone and Carrion was alone.

Starscream was dead.

Oddly, though it still hurt to think that, the pain was a secondary thing. Mostly what he felt instead was a tight, hard resolve. Starscream was gone, and nothing would change that. The last thing he should be doing was brooding over misery for the fallen Commander. That was in itself a slight against the larger mech.

With some small sense of surprise, he realized that the pain he felt was hardly there at all. He was lonely, and he knew there wasn't anything that he wouldn't sacrifice if it meant Starscream would return… but he also knew that nothing he did would change the current state of affairs. Admitting that didn't even hurt; dead was dead, and he had to accept that.

He gave the thin red strip of metal a long look, his mismatched optics dimming slightly as he allowed a trace of a smile to touch his face. It was a sad expression, despite the upward tilt of his mouth, but he felt some relief at it. It seemed he hadn't smiled outside of a grimace of success in a decade.

Carefully, he tucked the scrap into that safe place in his armor, and made his way to a hangar, dropping out and flying away unseen. It was good to be insignificant.

The flight took hours, but he didn't mind. No one accessed his com, calling him back to the ship, and it was good to just fly without a fight or the promise of work ahead.

Part of him expected to have trouble relocating the cave where he'd left Starscream's body, but the majority of him could process that as stupidity. He would never forget. Landing lightly in his normal form, he ducked into the cave, pulling the scrap free from his armor.

For a minute, he only stood there, looking. Despite his efforts, some debris and sand had blown into the cave, piling up against Starscream's legs and giving his armor a dull coat of grime in places. Otherwise, everything was exactly as he'd remembered leaving it.

Moving to his Commander's side – and no, even now, he couldn't think of anyone else as his Commander, refused to lessen Starscream in any way – he kneeled, and pulled out his spot welder. It was the work of a second to reattach the scrap, and it hardly hurt at all. When it was done, he allowed his claws to touch the older jet's face, without even the pretense of wiping anything away.

It was the ghost of a touch, and though he couldn't bring himself to say anything, it said enough of his regret and loneliness and of how much he missed the other mech. But it was done now.

After a moment that was perhaps a little long, he stood and walked out of the cave. There was no urge to look back, for there would be nothing to see, and even now the pain was folding itself away and diminishing. He took to the sky, and felt lighter for it.

Nothing he ever did would lessen the loss of his Commander. His only course of action was to continue as he had, obeying orders and keeping out of the way of those who might take it into their heads to put him offline. He would be clever, and he would be brutal, and he would do _anything_ it took to keep himself alive, simply out of pure spite.

Starscream would have understood. He might even had approved.

* * *

><p>AN: And with that said, I feel I should remind you all that this is Starscream we're talking about, so yes: he comes back. Beastwars told us that Starscream's spark is defective in such a way that it can never truly be extinguished, and I hold to that. For the purposes of this story, however, he stays dead for several years before managing to resurrect.


End file.
